


Guest Appearance

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Chelyabinsk, Community: ladiesbingo, Drunk Sex, Dubious scoring, F/F, Femslash, Ice Skating, Russian Nationals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 21:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13796388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Anya and Mila both came outside for a quiet cigarette and a bit of privacy. Who knows what else they'll find?





	Guest Appearance

Neither of them was meant to be out here. Anya knew that she should have been indoors with Andrei, assessing their performance in their exhibition skate, and working out something that might look half-way competent in the gala finale.

Ludmila Babicheva should, presumably, have been warming up for her exhibition, preparing to celebrate her second gold medal of the season. She should not have been looking so miserable that a near-stranger like Anya could tell it from the mere hunch of her shoulders. Certainly she should not have been smoking. And yet here she was, elbows propped on the railing, the tip of her cigarette glowing red, a ribbon of smoke curling upwards through the frosty air.

When the door banged, Ludmila looked around, startled. Then she seemed to recognise her, and relaxed. 'Anna.'

Anya nodded back. 'Ludmila.'

They looked at each other with some suspicion. 'Mila,' Ludmila offered, more tentatively than Anya had expected.

She decided to take her up on that offer. 'Anya. Do you have a light?'

Mila flashed a brilliant smile and fumbled in the pocket of her jacket. 'Please – don't tell Yakov,' she said as she handed the lighter over.

There it was. Anya knew that Mila knew that Anya didn't need to be told who Yakov was, because Mila had trained with Yakov alongside Georgi, and Anya had dated Georgi. And so, despite the fact that Anya had never spoken to Mila, despite the fact that she'd dumped Georgi ages ago and despite the fact that Georgi had retired last year, there was a connection between them, and apparently they were going to acknowledge it. And Anya would not tell Yakov.

She dug out her own pack of cigarettes, slid one out, and lit it. 'So why are you out here?'

'I was here first. Why are _you_ out here?'

She wouldn't have admitted it to anyone in her own discipline, but Mila, a singles skater from the St Petersburg rink, seemed just far enough and just close enough to be safe. 'We didn't deserve to be on the podium. The French couple, the Chinese, they were both better than us.'

Mila's face was blank, neither politely disbelieving nor insultingly assenting. 'I didn't watch the ice dance,' she said.

'Ask your Yakov,' Anya said.

Mila exhaled a cloud of smoke. 'I'll trust you. What does your partner think?'

Anya didn't bother trying not to sound bitter. 'Oh, Andrei doesn't argue with the judges. Not when they mark us above where we should be.'

'You don't like him, do you?'

'Oh, so you did watch our dance?' It was a cheap shot, but Anya didn't care.

Mila raised her eyebrows. 'I didn't need to, not when you talk about him like that.'

'The commentators said we were lacking in chemistry. That's putting it mildly.' She sighed. 'It's not even that I don't like him. He's nice enough. That's the trouble. If I hated him, I could do something with that.'

'I'll tell you a secret,' Mila said. 'I only came in top because the judges were relieved to hear some music that wasn't from _Montmartre_.'

Reluctantly, Anya laughed. 'That's a lie.'

Mila looked pleased with herself. 'Fine. _Montmartre_ or _Odette and Odile_.'

'It's certainly been a bit of a season for the tired old classics.'

'Oh, come on. _Montmartre_ came out...'

Anya glanced at her. 'When you were a baby. Trust me. It's a classic.'

'I wonder who's sleeping with whom,' Anya said, and she saw Mila flinch. 'What? I meant on the judging panel.'

Mila spoke very rapidly. 'I'll tell you who's not sleeping with anybody. Me. And I'll tell you who is. My lying, cheating girlfriend – _ex_ -girlfriend – whose shitty song I am going to have to skate to for my exhibition, because it's too late to change it now. And that's why I'm out here.'

'Shit,' Anya said. 'I'm sorry.'

'Thanks,' Mila said. She took out her phone; Anya saw the clock face glow in the dim light. 'Speaking of which. I'd better get back inside.'

She touched Anya lightly on the arm as she passed her. The door closed behind her.

Anya finished her cigarette, ground it under her foot, and then went back inside herself. Andrei would be worrying; besides, she was curious about Mila's exhibition skate now.

*

Anya hadn't seen it before: it was new for this season (along with the girlfriend, she assumed) and could only have come out for a couple of minor competitions and Rostelecom. She doubted that it had looked like this before today.

The song was pleasant. The skate was all spitting fury, scored into the ice with an intensity that was almost frightening. Mila was moving too fast for Anya to see her face, scattering spins and jumps as if she didn't care where they ended up. She landed a triple Axel and then fell on a triple Salchow, throwing herself angrily back into the routine. The banal lyrics, the lightweight vocals and gentle guitar accompaniment seemed on the verge of buckling under the weight of emotion that Mila was putting into the exhibition.

It shouldn't have worked. But it did. The sheer physicality underlined the artifice of the music, the raw edges marked the gap between the way things should have been and the way they really were. Even if Anya hadn't known the story, she thought, she might have guessed it.

Mila went into one last whirling, defiant layback spin and finished with her arms and head thrown back, as if inviting the universe to bring on anything else that it had lined up for her. The applause was bewildered at first, then, as the audience decided that it liked this skate, or that it liked the gold medallist regardless of what she'd done with this piece, rose to a cheer and finished in a standing ovation.

Mila straightened up, panting, her hair wild, with a challenge in her eyes.

Anya released a breath, slowly. She thought of saying to Andrei, 'There: _that's_ what we're missing.' But she knew he wouldn't understand what she meant.

*

Bronze at Skate Canada and fourth place at the NHK Trophy would not, ordinarily, have got them to the Grand Prix Final, but Klaus Weil broke his ankle the week after, and Anya and Andrei took the place of him and Jutta Schaap.

Mila Babicheva was there by absolute right, having won gold at both her Grand Prix events. Anya passed her a few times in the corridors, but, conscious that they had both perhaps said too much the last time they met, left matters at a nod and a smile. Mila returned both, with an abstracted air. No wonder. She had consolidated her position as red-hot favourite with a stunning short program, but both Felicity Smithson and Sara Crispino still had the potential to beat her in the free. So much Anya understood from Olia, who was herself hoping for either of them to falter and give her a chance at the podium.

As for Anya and Andrei, they had started in the first group, and they had stayed there. They hadn't disgraced themselves, but they weren't going to blow the rest of the field away, either. It was, Anya thought, just possible that they would move up to fourth if Andrei could manage something better than his average.

No, that wasn't fair. They were a team. It was on her, too.

They were not invited to participate in the gala.

Mila Babicheva had changed the music for her exhibition skate. Anya told herself that she liked it.

*

Nationals were at Chelyabinsk that year, which made Anya feel unaccountably nervous and provincial. Suddenly all the buildings seemed vulgar and new, the atmosphere unsophisticated.

The St Petersburg contingent swept into town like a fireball and didn't even seem to notice their surroundings. Oddly, it didn't make Anya feel any better. She and Olia had made sure to get to the venue early, to be out on the ice, warmed up, and looking as if they'd been there for hours. It was murder at the top of the ladies' discipline this season: Mila had claimed and defended the crown these last two years, but there was a whole clutch of younger rivals snapping at each other and her heels, ready to swoop in the instant she lost focus. Olia was one of them.

She and Andrei were favourites for the ice dance competition; she only hoped that they would pull it off in front of the home crowd.

The St Petersburg contingent didn't seem to notice them, either. Anya found it rather irritating.

'Mila!' She waved, and got a dirty look from Olia for her trouble. But Mila looked round, saw her, and smiled.

  
There were no real surprises. If Anya felt like there was no more chemistry between her and Andrei than between two shop window mannequins, well, it didn't matter; their lifts were good, and their twizzles were in sync, and there was nobody in Russia who could touch them on the technical score. Europeans would be a different matter, but Anya knew that there was no point in worrying about that until Nationals were over. In Russia, they won easily.

Besides, the focus was entirely on the men's singles. Victor Nikiforov: could he possibly do it again? Yuri Plisetsky: would he live up to last season's promise?

(No, not quite; and yes, almost.)

The most interesting fight was in the ladies' singles. Olia had an uncharacteristically good short program; Mila had an uncharacteristically poor one, with two of her triples turning to singles. _First, Olga Nikolayeva. Second, Ekaterina Petrenko. Third, Ludmila Babicheva._ It wasn't the way the leader board usually looked, and Anya wondered if this was a sign of things to come. But Mila pulled it back in the free, with a dazzling, dreamy, skate to Lizst's _Piano Sonata in B flat_.

Anya watched the whole of the free programme, from beginning to end, and when Mila landed her final, beautiful, triple flip, she cheered as loud as anybody.

  
Afterwards, hanging around in the lobby, she felt someone touch her on the elbow, and turned around. 'Mila! Congratulations!'

Mila beamed. 'Thank you! And to you!'

'You'll be celebrating tonight, no doubt.'

'Yes! That was why I wanted to talk to you. Do you know somewhere good? It's Victor's birthday, so we're all going out.'

'Of course I do,' Anya said, deflated. 'I know a couple of places. Let me write down the directions for you.'

Mila flushed. 'And would you like to come, obviously? Ask your Andrei, too.'

'Won't Victor mind?'

'No,' Mila said, 'and if he did, I'd rather go out with you.'

Anya hesitated. 'Olia and Masha will have my head.'

'I don't care,' Mila said. 'It's past their bedtime, anyway.'

Looking at Mila's dazzling grin, at the fun sparkling in the corners of her blue eyes, Anya decided that she didn't care, either.

  
The group – most of the Saint Petersburg skaters, and some of the coaches and staff too – toured the bars of Chelyabinsk until they found somewhere that Victor Nikiforov liked the look of, and let him buy the drinks.

Anya felt a little out of place. Andrei had declined to come. The only person she really knew here was Mila, and Mila was busy teasing Yuri Plisetsky about something or other. One of the pairs skaters was trying to find out about Georgi, and Anya was struggling to find anything to say that didn't feel private but which the whole world hadn't heard already.

Then there was a shout of triumph from Victor, who, it seemed, had finally established a Skype connection to Japan. Yuri escaped from Mila in order to hurl affectionate abuse at Yuri Katsuki over Victor's shoulder. Mila turned back to Anya.

'Sorry,' she said, 'I didn't mean to ignore you, but really, Yura deserved that for his free skate! Do you need another drink?'

Anya held up her glass, still half-full, smiled, and shook her head. 'Actually,' she said, 'I thought I'd find somewhere a bit quieter.'

Mila raised an eyebrow. 'Would you like some company?'

'Oh, yes,' Anya said. 'Definitely.'

  
There wasn't really anywhere quieter, so they huddled together in a corner and told each other about everything that had gone right at Nationals, and everything that they were going to _get_ right at Europeans, and every so often Victor came past with a bottle of vodka and sloshed some more into their glasses, and that was convenient for everybody, except possibly Victor, who didn't seem to mind.

And after an hour or so Anya's legs had gone very wobbly and really it made sense for her to throw an arm around Mila's shoulders in order to keep her balance. And it made sense for Mila to slide _her_ arm around Anya's waist. And really, the feel of Mila's fingertips on her bare skin where her top was just riding up was delicious, and she was so warm, and she smelled so nice, and she wasn't sure which of them had started the kissing, but she knew that she wasn't going to be the one to stop it.

Until...

'Yura!' That was Victor. 'Yura, _don't_ tag Gosha, you inconsiderate brat...'

'Too late,' Yuri said triumphantly, sliding his phone into his pocket. 'Mila, you hag,' he yelled, 'you'd better watch out for Georgi when you're back in St Petersburg.'

Anya swore.

'Don't worry,' Mila said. 'I can take Gosha.'

Yes, Anya thought with a little thrill, she probably could – although really, the worst that would happen would be that Georgi would droop a bit and maybe post something obscure and sentimental on Twitter. 'That's all right, then,' she said. 'I was worried I'd have to keep you here in Chelyabinsk for protection.'

Mila pulled Anya close again. 'Having said that, what if I wanted an excuse to stay?'

'You don't need one,' Anya said, 'because I'm going to invite you. Now. Will your coach throw a fit if you come back to mine?'

Mila gestured at Yakov Feltsman, who now seemed to be everybody's best friend. 'He won't notice. Not until tomorrow.'

'In that case,' Anya said, 'why don't we find somewhere that actually is more private?

  
They spent most of the ride back home kissing with increasing commitment, and almost fell out of the car when they arrived. Anya unlocked the front door and led the way upstairs into her flat, into her bedroom.

Mila's gaze swept around the room and returned to Anya with an intensity that made her shiver. The few seconds of cold air seemed to have invigorated them both, and there was a new urgency to their kisses. Jackets and boots, outerwear and underwear, were strewn across the room, until Anya toppled backwards onto the bed and pulled Mila down on top of her.

Mila, who hadn't quite got Anya's bra undone, muttered something in protest, and Anya lifted one shoulder and then the other to release her hands.

She did not come to regret this in the slightest. Mila turned out to be very good with her hands, and appreciative of Anya's own, less expert, efforts. With practice, Anya thought, she could really get quite good at this, and if the practice itself was as much fun as this...

  
Some time later, Mila reached for her phone, looked at the time, and groaned.

'Stay the night,' Anya suggested sleepily. It seemed far less trouble to let Mila stay here than to sort her out with a ride back to hotel, wherever that was.

'Really? You honestly don't mind?'

'Really. Stay the night. Stay for New Year,' Anya said, impulsively. 'There's a party.'

Mila laughed. 'I'd love to. But what about practice? Yakov will kill me, and I don't want him to be justified.'

'I'll sign you into my rink. Vera won't mind, much. Just watch out for Olia and Masha, OK? I'd hate anything to happen to your kneecaps.'

'I'll take the risk,' Mila said, and went back to kissing her.

*

In the event, Olia and Masha were comparatively well-behaved. Possibly, Anya thought, they were terrified of Mila. When she skated towards them, they fled, and Anya, laughing, put herself in Mila's path. Mila grinned back, holding her arms out as preparing for a lift.

What the hell, Anya thought, and held her own arms out in return. She found Mila's shoulders; Mila's hands tightened on either side of her waist, but the momentum swept them over. They ended up in a tangle on the ice.

'Wow,' Mila said. She was still laughing, but she sounded worried. 'Sorry. I wasn't expecting you to go along with that. Try it again?'

'Expect me this time,' Anya said. 'And it's going to be easier if we start from the same place, look...' She got back up and pulled Mila up after her. 'A lift isn't something that you do to me, it comes as much from me as it does from you, so we need to act as a unit. Let's start in hold.'

Mila looked uncharacteristically frightened, as if Anya was the first person ever to call her bluff, but she wasn't the sort of person to back down just because someone was taking her seriously. And Anya found that she liked the idea of taking Mila Babicheva seriously.

'And my weight's coming _down_ through your shoulder here, look, so you've got to allow for that, or we both end up on the ice again,' she was saying when Andrei turned up, saw what was going on, and rolled his eyes a bit. But after a little while he couldn't resist showing Mila how to adjust her balance to compensate for Anya's weight, and they were beginning to be convincing by the time that Vera turned up with a lecture for everyone on the ice. 'Anna, if you manage to injure one of Yakov Feltsman's skaters then you're going to be the one who tells him. Ludmila Babicheva, if you injure one of _my_ skaters you'll be hearing about it for a very long time.' She whirled around to address the giggling spectators. 'Olga, Maria, stop gawping and concentrate on your own faults, or Lyubov will have something to say to you when she gets here. And as for you, Andrei, you would do well to consider why a singles specialist is making a more convincing partner for Anna than you do.'

Andrei muttered something which got him another lecture from Vera, but when they ran through their short dance at the end of that morning's practice the chemistry seemed better than it had been all season.

*

The days either side of New Year went in a whirl of parties, practice, and deliriously enjoyable sex. Mila took a train back to Saint Petersburg just before Christmas. Anya went with her to the station.

'Goodbye, Mila,' she said. 'It's been fun.'

'Goodbye.' Mila hesitated, rubbing her train ticket between her fingers. 'I'll see you at Worlds, then?' she said.

'I'd like to see you before,' Anya said.

'Oh, _good_ ,' Mila said. 'Yes. I'd like to see you, too.' She hesitated, looking suddenly young and shy. 'Anya?'

'Yes?'

Mila shoved her ticket into her pocket and took hold of Anya's elbows. 'I've been thinking. I want to change my exhibition again.'

'Do you, indeed?' Anya let herself be drawn in closer.

'I've got an idea, but I'd need someone else on the ice with me, and I was wondering if you'd be interested...?'

'Everybody's doing that now,' Anya said. 'Yuri Plisetsky, Misha Ge, Yuri Katsuki...'

But Mila was smiling as if she already knew the answer, and Anya let her pick her up and whirl her around and around, and when she put her down again she didn't let go, and they stood there in each other's arms until the dizziness had receded and the train came into the platform.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Ladiesbingo prompt 'Lies, damn lies, and statistics'.
> 
> _Montmartre_ is this universe's version of _Moulin Rouge_ and _Odette and Odile_ is of course _Swan Lake_.


End file.
